As God painted another perfect sunrise over the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina, the boys awakened to a camp favorite breakfast of French toast and bacon. The mass amounts of food consumed quickly transformed to shots of pure energy as our young men released one of the loudest morning yells ever heard this side of the Mississippi (or at least this side of Tweedle Creek). While most campers stayed here on property today, we also did have a good amount that went out to have some fun in the sun, on the water. Today we had trips that went out to the Pigeon River for white water rafting and Lake James for water skiing.  From the morning yell, we transferred said energy to another great morning of chapel where many songs were sung and Mr. Adam Boyd, one of the co-owners of Camp Timberlake!, gave a talk on mans’ inability to please God solely through works on this earth. From chapel, our campers exited to what may in fact be the most competitive part of a day at camp, cabin clean up! In fact, todays cabin clean-up was even more exciting than usual, as the littlest cabins came through with the biggest scores as Little Piney finished in first place, followed by Tomahawk in an extremely-close second place. Next began what I like to consider the “classiest” part of a day at camp. As usual, all of today’s classes involved the perfect combination of first-class instruction and plenty of time for DBD (dudes being dudes.) In addition, today we also had some campers who deserved special recognition for achieving bars in their activities. Starting with team sports, we would like to congratulate both Randolph P. and Tim M. for achieving their bronze bars. Staying on Spencer’s Green, we would also like to congratulate Bailey M. for mastering long passing to achieve his silver bar in soccer. Moving down to the lake, we also had two more bars handed out in canoeing, where both Mike Provosty and Teddy O. achieved their bronze bars in recognition of their hard work. Lunch brought with it another big camp favorite… PIZZA DAY! Again I was amazed with just how much of the stuff that my table of thirteen year old boys was able to polish off in a mere thirty minutes! (It was more than most counselors could.) After the cheer “Thank You Kitchen!” rang throughout the dining hall, it was time to announce who had won our intense evening activity from the night before, The Great Escape. To the shear elation of some, including myself, and shear disappointment of others, the mighty Iroquois were announced as the winners and moved one step closer to claiming the ultimate prize, the third session banner. After all of this excitement it was time once again for the always needed, yet rarely respected rest time, which led into a rainy, yet still extremely enjoyable time at the trading post and  activities around camp for free time. After two more awesome periods of instruction, the entire camp was prepared a rare treat for dinner, a whole hog BBQ with all the fixings, smoked by our very own Program Director, Matt Hansen. As evident by my many references within this article alone, I think it is safe to say that Timberlake had no shortage of great meals today. After multiple trays of BBQ were demolished by one hungry group of campers and staff, we all headed outside where a regular article writer, Charlie Richards, announced tonight’s evening activity, Inferno! Tonight the mighty Iroquois and the powerful Seminoles will wage battle by attempting to put out each other’s fires with individual cups of water, carried by each tribesman. However, the challenge does not end there as each tribe is able to send its members to complete specific tasks throughout the competition to earn additional logs which keep the fire burning longer. With the beginning of Inferno comes the end of my summery of another great day at Timberlake. I hope that all the family and friends at home are having an equally fun time at home or wherever you may be. I cannot wait to meet all of you next week at what I am sure will be another great day of closing ceremonies, so with that I would like to wish everyone at home a good night from Camp Timberlake.

God bless,

Matthew Murphy

Counselor in Training (Little Slatey)